Saying Thank You to Israeli Soldiers

We stand by the new graves of the fallen soldiers. So new they are just mounds of dirt covered with stones and notes. I stare down at the tiny scraps of paper: "We love you. We miss you. You will always be a hero in our hearts." Some of the graves have photos of the soldiers on them. They are all so very young, and they are all smiling, as if their lives are just beginning.

One of the notes has ten scribbled words in Hebrew that bring deep comfort within the grief: “The eternal nation is not afraid of the long road.”

I look at those words for a long time. I think about them as a father of a fallen soldier stands beside us and cries openly into the bright, cloudless summer sky. And I think of those words as we gather around the grave of Max Steinberg, the lone soldier who died just weeks before in Gaza. The leader of our Young Israel of Scarsdale Solidarity Mission, Rabbi Jonathan Morgenstern, stands before Max's grave and speaks about how this is a grave that won't have many family members visiting because Max's family lives in California. How he was an American, just like us, who was willing to die for what he believed in.

A dozen birthright groups at the cemetery begin to slowly gather around us. Rabbi Morgenstern starts to recite Kel Rachamim. O God, full of mercy, Who dwells on high, shelter him in the shelter of His wings for eternity. The tears begin to trickle down our faces as a gentle breeze weaves its way through the trees that cradle newborn graves. Beside me, a teenage boy from one of the birthright groups is quickly wiping away his tears and gazing out at the distant mountains below us. We are all here to say thank you to these soldiers. And to their families. We are here to honor what they stood for. From all over the world we stand around these too new graves and pray. The eternal nation is not afraid of the long road.

Later we stand beside the hospital bedside of a tank commander who lost four of his soldiers that morning in battle. He is in terrible pain, his leg shattered and set in a metal contraption. But he sits up when he sees us, wincing in pain. "Please, please pray for my boys who were killed. They were such good boys. Pray for their souls. Please, Rabbi, I want you to pray for my boys. When you go back to America tell everyone how brave my boys were. How they fought until their last breath for you. For all of you. Tell them to pray." Exhausted, he lays back down and holds onto the hospital bed trying to contain his pain. "Make sure they pray. They were such good boys."

We visit more injured soldiers. We bring them small books of Psalms that we have brought with us. We tell them how we pray every day for their safety, how we are thinking about them, how all over the world, Jews are praying for their recovery. Their eyes light up. They thank us and tell us to ask more people in America to come to visit. "Tell them how much we need them. Tell them how much strength it gives us when you come."

Later, in the conference room of the Barzilai Hospital in Ashkelon, the head of the emergency room explains how they have to evacuate 70% of their patients in a rocket attack, and bring the remaining 30% that cannot be sent home into shelters. He shows us films of the NICU bassinets being transported to a tiny concrete building on the hospital grounds. I cannot imagine how they do this. The amount of machinery and tubes that must be meticulously transported, the intricate level of organization it takes to evacuate so many patients. He shows us a slide of a rocket that landed a few feet from the emergency room and miraculously didn't explode. He shows us where his own house is, 300 meters from the Gaza border. And he shows us slides of Arabs from Gaza that the hospital treats on an ongoing basis.

One of the slides shows a pregnant woman who had frantically called Israel for help; Hamas was shooting rockets from her backyard, she was going through a high risk pregnancy and she wanted to come to Barzilai hospital. Israel immediately sent an ambulance into an extremely dangerous area to bring her to Ashkelon where she had a healthy baby girl. In the back of the conference room is a model of what a medical personnel may need to wear while dealing with high alerts and chronic mass traumas. The eternal nation is not afraid of the long road.

"Thank you. You give us strength. When you go back to America, tell them to come."

Later we visit the ICU at Soroka hospital in Beersheva; only one soldier can respond to us there. He had been shot in the throat, but the bullet missed an artery by a millimeter. The soldier was operated on in the field, and had a tracheotomy put in until he can breathe again on his own. So he cannot yet speak but he is fully conscious, looking at us with warm eyes and a miraculous smile. His father has tears in his eyes when he sees our group: "Thank you. You give us strength. When you go back to America, tell more people. Tell them what you see. Tell them to come."

The other soldiers we see that day in the ICU are heartbreaking sights; head injuries that rendered once handsome young men into unrecognizable, swollen patients, hearts that had stopped beating and had to be surgically re-started, shrapnel stuck inside ears, foreheads, necks. The ICU doctor tells us the shrapnel could never be removed; it is too risky. He explains that the category of "lightly" wounded isn't what we would think of as lightly wounded. It can mean losing an eye, an arm, a leg. You can only imagine then what moderate and seriously wounded means.

A soldier visiting one of his injured friends tells us, "Four of my friends died yesterday. I'm going this afternoon to another funeral."

And we go to that funeral at Har Herzl after visiting the hospital. The funeral of Liel Gidoni. There are hundreds of Jews there from every segment of the population. Secular, religious, Israeli, foreigners; all crowded together near the other freshly dug graves that we had just recently prayed beside. Liel's brother screams into the fading afternoon light. "Please come back, Liel and help me do this! I cannot say good bye. I don't know how to go on without you. Liel, you have gone to a better place. A place where there are no enemies pursuing you. No explosions. No fighting. But who will I turn to now when I need my brother, my friend? Who will I turn to when I need you? Liel, I can't believe I am standing here, this cannot be real. But you were the one who always smiled and said everything will be okay. That's what I need now. Liel, your smile and your strength, your hope. Liel, give us back your hope!"

And then the prayer begins for a fallen soldier: "This is a hero who died Al kiddush Hashem, sanctifying God’s Name. May his holy soul rest in Gan Eden…" There is such an intense, unspeakable sense of unity surrounding the Gidoni family. The eternal nation is not afraid of the long road.

There is hope within grief, prayer within doubt, and life within death. We have seen it. We have felt it. The hope emanating from the hospital corridors and from the top of Har Herzl. We came to comfort and instead, we ourselves were comforted. “Nachumu, nachumu ami – be comforted, be comforted My people” we read from Isaiah the Shabbat after Tisha B’Av. May God gather the eternal nation into His arms and show us the way on the long road ahead of us.

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About the Author

Sara Debbie Gutfreund received her BA in English from the University of Pennsylvania and her MA in Family Therapy from the University of North Texas. She has taught parenting classes and self-development seminars and provided adolescent counseling. She writes extensively for many online publications and in published anthologies of Jewish women's writing. She and her husband spent 14 wonderful years raising their five children in Israel, and now live in Blue Ridge Estates in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Sara Debbie enjoys skiing and running in her free time.

Visitor Comments: 8

With endless LOVE to our precious soldiers, may the Light of their Beautiful Souls shine to us on our earthly way.

(6)
Irene,
August 10, 2014 10:29 PM

WE PRAY FOR YOU,OUR CHILDREN IN ISRAEL,WE BELIEVE IN YOUR STRENGTH ,WE LOVE YOU,PLEASE,ALWAYS RETURN TO YOUR LOVED ONES !

(5)
sandro,
August 10, 2014 9:32 PM

peace

we all should pray for the idf soldiers, for the country israel, but for all the people there in this area, in palestine too, they're all in danger of their lifes, only, 'cause some fanatic islamists want to have their war

(4)
CJ,
August 10, 2014 8:21 PM

I will come.

I came once and I will come again.

(3)
Lauren Adilev,
August 10, 2014 7:06 PM

Come Back Home!

Debbie:

I met you years ago. You lived in such a nice community, had a great life here. Why are you in the States? Show your kids what the emet, the truth is and come back home-and bring your neighbors too!

(2)
Dawn Petersburg - Denver, Colorado, USA,
August 10, 2014 4:29 PM

Who Is Praying

I just want to say, it is not just the Jews around the world praying for Israel. :( There are Gentiles who pray for Israel, too. Although we believe differently about the Messiah, we still fast and pray, and hold prayer vigils for Israel, the IDF soldiers, and the Peace of Jerusalem.

שלום (Kol tuv),Dawn PetersburgDenver, Colorado, USA

(1)
betty weiner,
August 10, 2014 4:28 PM

our hearts go out to the brave soldiers .every lose is a lose for all of us!!!!

I'm told that it's a mitzvah to become intoxicated on Purim. This puzzles me, because to my understanding, it is not considered a good thing to become intoxicated, period.

One of the characteristics of the at-risk youth is their use of drugs, including alcohol. In my experience, getting drunk doesn't reveal secrets. It makes people act stupid and irresponsible, doing things they would never do if they were sober. Also, I know a lot about the horrible health effects of abusing alcohol, because I work at a research center that focuses on addiction and substance abuse.

Also, I am an alcoholic, which means that if I drink, very bad things happen. I have not had a drink in 22 years, and I have no intention of starting now. Surely there must be instances where a person is excused from the obligation to drink. I don't see how Judaism could ever promote the idea of getting drunk. It just doesn't seem right.

The Aish Rabbi Replies:

Putting aside for a moment all the spiritual and philosophical reasons for getting drunk on Purim, this remains an issue of common sense. Of course, teenagers should be warned of the dangers of acute alcohol ingestion. Of course, nobody should drink and drive. Of course, nobody should become so drunk to the point of negligence in performing mitzvot. And of course, a recovering alcoholic should not partake of alcohol on Purim.

Indeed, the Code of Jewish Law explicitly says that if one suspects the drinking may affect him negatively, then he should NOT drink.

Getting drunk on Purim is actually one of the most difficult mitzvot to do correctly. A person should only drink if it will lead to positive spiritual results - e.g. under the loosening affect of the alcohol, greater awareness will surface of the love for God and Torah found deep in the heart. (Perhaps if we were on a higher spiritual level, we wouldn't need to get drunk!)

Yet the Talmud still speaks of an obligation on Purim of "not knowing the difference between Blessed is Mordechai and Cursed is Haman." How then should a person who doesn't drink get the point of “not knowing”? Simple - just go to sleep! (Rama - OC 695:2)

All this applies to individuals. But the question remains - does drinking on Purim adversely affect the collective social health of the Jewish community?

The aversion to alcoholism is engrained into Jewish consciousness from a number of Biblical and Talmudic sources. There are the rebuking words of prophets - Isaiah 28:1, Hosea 3:1 with Rashi, and Amos 6:6, and the Zohar says that "The wicked stray after wine" (Midrash Ne'alam Parshat Vayera).

It is well known that the rate of alcoholism among Jews has historically been very low. Numerous medical, psychological and sociological studies have confirmed this. The connection between Judaism and sobriety is so evident, that the following conversation is reported by Lawrence Kelemen in "Permission to Receive":

When Dr. Mark Keller, editor of the Quarterly Journal of Studies on Alcohol, commented that "practically all Jews do drink, and yet all the world knows that Jews hardly ever become alcoholics," his colleague, Dr. Howard Haggard, director of Yale's Laboratory of Applied Physiology, jokingly proposed converting alcoholics to the Jewish religion in order to immerse them in a culture with healthy attitudes toward drinking!

Perhaps we could suggest that it is precisely because of the use of alcohol in traditional ceremonies (Kiddush, Bris, Purim, etc.), that Jews experience such low rates of alcoholism. This ceremonial usage may actually act like an inoculation - i.e. injecting a safe amount that keeps the disease away.

Of course, as we said earlier, all this needs to be monitored with good common sense. Yet in my personal experience - having been in the company of Torah scholars who were totally drunk on Purim - they acted with extreme gentleness and joy. Amid the Jewish songs and beautiful words of Torah, every year the event is, for me, very special.

Adar 12 marks the dedication of Herod's renovations on the second Holy Temple in Jerusalem in 11 BCE. Herod was king of Judea in the first century BCE who constructed grand projects like the fortresses at Masada and Herodium, the city of Caesarea, and fortifications around the old city of Jerusalem. The most ambitious of Herod's projects was the re-building of the Temple, which was in disrepair after standing over 300 years. Herod's renovations included a huge man-made platform that remains today the largest man-made platform in the world. It took 10,000 men 10 years just to build the retaining walls around the Temple Mount; the Western Wall that we know today is part of that retaining wall. The Temple itself was a phenomenal site, covered in gold and marble. As the Talmud says, "He who has not seen Herod's building, has never in his life seen a truly grand building."

Some people gauge the value of themselves by what they own. But in reality, the entire concept of ownership of possessions is based on an illusion. When you obtain a material object, it does not become part of you. Ownership is merely your right to use specific objects whenever you wish.

How unfortunate is the person who has an ambition to cleave to something impossible to cleave to! Such a person will not obtain what he desires and will experience suffering.

Fortunate is the person whose ambition it is to acquire personal growth that is independent of external factors. Such a person will lead a happy and rewarding life.

With exercising patience you could have saved yourself 400 zuzim (Berachos 20a).

This Talmudic proverb arose from a case where someone was fined 400 zuzim because he acted in undue haste and insulted some one.

I was once pulling into a parking lot. Since I was a bit late for an important appointment, I was terribly annoyed that the lead car in the procession was creeping at a snail's pace. The driver immediately in front of me was showing his impatience by sounding his horn. In my aggravation, I wanted to join him, but I saw no real purpose in adding to the cacophony.

When the lead driver finally pulled into a parking space, I saw a wheelchair symbol on his rear license plate. He was handicapped and was obviously in need of the nearest parking space. I felt bad that I had harbored such hostile feelings about him, but was gratified that I had not sounded my horn, because then I would really have felt guilty for my lack of consideration.

This incident has helped me to delay my reactions to other frustrating situations until I have more time to evaluate all the circumstances. My motives do not stem from lofty principles, but from my desire to avoid having to feel guilt and remorse for having been foolish or inconsiderate.

Today I shall...

try to withhold impulsive reaction, bearing in mind that a hasty act performed without full knowledge of all the circumstances may cause me much distress.

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